Interlaken

This weekend was definitely one of my favorites because I got to share it with a friend from home!! As some of you may know, I'm in Kappa Delta sorority. When you're in a sorority, there's a lot of sisters, everywhere. Luckily for me, I have a sister studying in Italy who decided to come spend the weekend in Swiss! It was so much fun having a familiar face from home and from school to spend some time with!

When people come to visit Switzerland, there number one destination is usually Interlaken. No one comes to Switzerland to go to St. Moritz or Lausanne or Zurich or Bern, they go for Interlaken. It makes sense, it's in the heart of mountains and sandwiched between two beautiful lakes. What draws people in the most, is the adventure that lies within Interlaken. It's known to be one of the "Adventure capitals" of the world, if that's even a real thing. Think of something adventurous you want to do and I bet it's in Interlaken. There is of course amazing skiing and awesome sledding to do in the winter. You also have sky diving, parasailing, hang gliding, cannoning, etc. On top of all the adventure, you have what people call the top of Europe. It's a station at the top of one of the mountains where you can go to the top and overlook the entire Swiss alps. I assume it would be nothing but breathtaking up there! Any who, that's Interlaken and that's where we were going to take my friend.

Megan, my friend, flew from Pisa, Italy early in the morning so we decided to just chill Friday and head to Interlaken on Saturday. It was an ordinary Friday of walking her around and showing her Geneva and then hitting up the bars a little bit Friday night. Nothing too exciting there.

Saturday morning, we hopped on an early train to get us to Interlaken around 10am. It was about a 3-hour train ride with one switch in the middle. Unfortunately, our first day there was not the prettiest of days. It was cloudy and gloomy and was supposed to rain. Once we got to Interlaken, the hunt was on to find our hostel. It was early in the morning so we decided to scope out the town a little bit. To our surprise, we ran into Winter wonderland. Winter wonderland is a big thing for Interlaken I guess, it's about 4 or 5 ice skating rinks all together with twist and turns. Not your typical hockey rink, but something fun to skate around. There also seemed to be bars lining the rink so we kept that in mind for later in the night. It took us a couple of U turns to find our hostel but eventually we were able to put our bags down and roam. What was supposed to be rain turned to snow and I have to say, despite it being cold, there was something magical about being in Interlaken while it was snowing. We walked down the main streets and found many little shops and chocolate places and bars.

Our plan was to check out the top of Europe, but to our surprise, the info center told us it was close to $200. On a student budget, that equals a weekend of travel fees and housing. We chose no to that.

We continued to walk around Interlaken before we hit one of the lakes. It was absolutely beautiful, even though it was covered in fog. From the lake we found a walking path along the river that connected the two lakes and followed that back to our hostel. The rest of our day was about the same, wondering around Interlaken until an acceptable hour to pop into a bar. We found a lovely beer garden with 160+ beers so safe to say, we enjoyed ourselves there.

As the night got late, some of us went to bed because they were exhausted while myself and the other wondered over to the casino. Yes, dad, you read right, a casino. We played countless rounds of blackjack before I lost my money and called it quits. Joe didn't do too hot either. Our other friends on the other hand, walked out with some cash money that they were pumped about. We stumbled home and passed out before our day of sledding tomorrow.

The day started out with clear skies and sunny as could be. We decided to take advantage of this and walk to the other lake surrounding Interlaken. This walk, was much longer than we thought but was gorgeous. We found a random walking trail that followed the river we followed yesterday and took us through the "country side" filled with fields and farms. The walking trail wasn't crowded; we saw maybe two or three people. The funny part, one of the few people we saw was actually another friend of mine from High Point. We play lacrosse together and she's studying in Italy too and decided to check out Interlaken! Such a small world sometimes. Any who, we managed to wonder into a castle on our way to the lake which gave us a gorgeous view of the mountains ahead. When we finally reached the lake it was absolutely gorgeous. The water was crystal clear and the mountains were to die for. We spent about a half hour at the lake before making our way back to the town center to wonder more before our train to sledding!

...

Grindelwald. Just up the mountains from Interlaken was the small ski village of Grindelwald. It's just as you would imagine. A small village nestled between countless mountains. Approaching Grindelwald we could see the end of some of the ski lifts, which weaved between the numerous housing places sporadically on the mountain side. We caught a bus to the top of a mountain where we planned to rent sleds and sled down. Imagine a big tour bus going up one way roads that are winding, twisting, slushy, and snowing... definitely a little creepy. It just snowed yesterday but since it's so warm now, the snow turned into slush and drenched the roads. The turns these buses had to make were straight 180 U turns and it was slightly terrifying when you were on cliff side. We made multiple stops along the way up to pick up any sledding who were looking to go back to the top. Unfortunately, we didn't see the best sledding from the bus. Despite just snowing yesterday, there wasn't much snow at all. We saw countless people walking down the road the bus was on... it didn't seem like too much fun. As we got closer to the top we saw more sledders but still not a horrible amount of snow that we had hoped.

The 30-minute bus ride finally got to the top and the views were incredible!! Of course, the tourist we are, stood there for about 20 minutes taking pictures before finding a nice bar. From where the buses dropped us off you could see that all the sledding were sledding from the hill above us. There were even some freestyle skiers. The hill above us marked the longest sledding route in Europe but also was about an hour or two climb... we didn't have time for that. Some of our group had to take the next bus down to catch their train, so the group that stayed up top decided to try and rent sleds and just slide down the top half of the mountain to one of the bus stops. Unfortunately, the rental guy said there was no snow and with so little time it wouldn't be worth renting. So we just took the bus down unfortunately, but it was definitely worth the view!!!

We wondered around Grindelwald before heading down to Interlaken for dinner and our train ride back. Let me tell you about this train ride! Our train went from Interlaken to Bern and then from Bern to Geneva. We made it to Bern perfectly fine and then had a half hour lay over. We decided to wonder around Bern close to the train station. We ended up finding a sweet outdoor rink and a street filled with restaurants, which will definitely come in handy to know next time I go to Bern! We went back to see what the deal was with our train and turns out it was cancelled. Just completely cancelled. We were stranded at Bern for hours before realizing to take a train to Lausanne and then from Lausanne to Geneva. We ended up not getting home until 1am... it was the worst but hey at least we made it back in time!!

Despite realizing everything I wanted to do in Interlaken was closed for the winter (cannoning, seeing the caves, waterfalls, lake boat tours) and sledding being a bummer, the weekend was full of great people and amazing views!! It's always nice to see a different place and the fact that we had so much time to just wonder the city made it all worth it. I plan to go back to Interlaken again for some hiking and hopefully cannoning and caves! until next time Interlaken!